Aston Villa 4, Newcastle United 1

Feb 11 2008 by Luke Edwards, The Journal

ACCORDING to Steven Taylor, Newcastle United’s players are not even contemplating a relegation battle. Well it is about time they stopped kidding themselves because that is what they are in.

There are some big-name players in Newcastle’s squad and there are even some talented footballers among them, but on the basis of the second-half display against Aston Villa, they are doing little to justify their reputations.

Footballers do not like criticism, particularly from people who are not directly involved in the game, but it does not take an FA coaching badge to work out they are playing badly, it does not take a cabinet full of international caps to suggest they should be embarrassed at recent results and it does not take a football genius to see they are, on current form, heading towards the Championship.

Newcastle, a team with eight full internationals in their starting line-up at Villa Park and another three on the bench, have taken just three points from the last 27. They have scored three goals in their last eight league games and have conceded 18. It is relegation form.

As for Kevin Keegan, most new managers enjoy a honeymoon period, but Newcastle’s results have been more in keeping with a divorce and, with Manchester United the next visitors to St James’s Park, that winless run is expected to continue. Nobody expected him to wave a magic wand on his return to St James’s Park, but we at least expected to see some evidence that things are improving.

While they ultimately failed in the job, Graeme Souness almost broke a club record when he won nine consecutive games in his first season. Glenn Roeder’s arrival as caretaker manager took the club into the Uefa Cup and, lest we forget, Sam Allardyce guided the team to its most successful start to a season in 11 years last year.

It would be foolish to imply Keegan will fail. He is after all trying to make the best out of what he inherited from Allardyce, which was a small squad desperately short on confidence.

However, that does not explain why, after Villa had scored their second goal, Keegan did not instruct his substitutes to warm up and it does not excuse the fact that it took him until the 73rd minute – by which time they were 3-1 down – to change things with the introduction of Emre.

Keegan should not and will not be judged until he has had a chance to design his own side, but he knows he must keep the club in the Premier League before that can happen.

There were, as the manager indicated as he picked at the pieces of Newcastle’s corpse on Saturday, some decent individual performances against Villa. Michael Owen scored – expertly heading in James Milner’s near-post cross – and looked sharp throughout. Damien Duff was lively and, at times, threatening. The same could be said of Milner while, at the back, as those around him fell apart, Taylor was once again a domineering figure. Unfortunately, with the exception of the goalkeepers, that leaves half a team of under performers.

Keegan was quick to back Alan Smith after the final whistle because of his work rate, but ultimately strikers will always be judged on goals. The £6m signing from Manchester United does not look like he will ever get one, while his hold up play in the second half left a lot to be desired. As his game disintegrated after the break, Mark Viduka was left on the bench with a face like thunder.

In midfield, Joey Barton looks like a man with the weight of a court case on his shoulders. He is combative enough and made one excellent tackle on Ashley Young in the area, but he also should have conceded a penalty when he blocked Gareth Barry’s volley with his hands. He looked ponderous in possession and his passing was wayward throughout.

As for the defence, Stephen Carr was given a torrid time in the second half by Villa substitute Marlon Harewood and gave away a needless penalty to gift John Carew his hat-trick. Carr is not a left-back, of course, but that can only excuse him so much.

On the other side, Habib Beye who, to be fair, has looked the best of Allardyce’s signings, looked as though his miserable experience at the African Cup of Nations with Senegal has had a lasting effect. In the middle, Caçapa, who has previously done well for Keegan, looked incapable of dealing with a physical centre forward.

Newcastle, though, as the old footballer’s cliché goes, win and lose as a team and this was a collective debacle. We will never know if things would have been different if Wilfred Bouma’s shot had not taken a cruel deflection off Beye to give Villa their equaliser minutes after the restart.

After that, Newcastle’s defence crumbled under the pressure of Carew – whose first goal came from a glancing header at the near post and his second when Nicky Butt headed the ball to him – and Harewood. It was torture to watch.